Both sides will be looking to kickstart their season this weekend
Influential Southampton midfielder Flynn Downes looks set to miss Saturday’s crunch meeting with Hull City through illness, which is an untimely blow to the South Coast outfit.
Boss Will Still has confirmed Downes continues to struggle with the issue which saw him miss the 2-2 draw at Watford at the back end of last month.
January signing Welington is also out of the MKM Stadium meeting with an ankle problem he sustained in the Saints’ sole defeat so far this season against Stoke City, but Cameron Archer is expected to be fit despite suffering from a hamstring complaint.
“We’re struggling with his illness levels at the moment,” the Saints’ chief said on the eve of the clash against City. “His immune system isn’t quite right, so he didn’t train today (Thursday) and didn’t feel great yesterday (Wednesday) either.
“Cam had a sore hamstring yesterday. I think he should be alright, he was back out on the pitch today doing adapted stuff but felt a tight hamstring yesterday. Welly is still working his way back.”
Southampton, who sit five places but just a single point above City in the early Championship standings, travel to Anfield on Tuesday night to face Liverpool in the Carabao Cup.
With such a big tie looming large on the horizon, there could be concerns that the Saints’ focus may drift towards a big night on Merseyside, but Still says all his energy is on trying to overcome the Tigers and secure just a second league win of the campaign.
“You look at Hull,” he continued. “Liverpool’s not important right now. We know it’s there. We know what it looks like and what it means. But the sole and only priority is Hull on Saturday.”
The Saints boss, who was appointed in the summer, is keen to see a better encounter than the bore draw against arch-rivals Portsmouth at St Mary’s last Sunday, which saw his side booed off after just one attempt on target.
“I hope it’s a better game than last week,” he confessed. “Yeah, I’m hoping it will be an open game. I think we’ve actually, regardless of conditions, done well to keep a clean sheet.“We’ve defended our box when we needed to, and we’ve been working on that a lot. So that was a start, but you’ve sort of overcompensated. We’ve done that a lot. It’s about getting that balance right, but hopefully they have a right go and we deal with their danger and are able to play the way we want to play as well. Because I think everyone enjoys watching football when it’s played like that and not when it’s a bit scrappy and a bit stop-start.”
Click here to listen to Dean Holden looking ahead to the visit of the Saints right here
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